Why Us?
The EUCILIA consortium brings together scientists working on three different animals models (Xenopus, zebrafish and mouse) and methodologies (cell biology, molecular biology, biochemistry) to answer the same biological question, i.e the role cilia play in rare diseases such as Bardet-Biedl (BBS), Oral-facial-digital type I (OFDI) and nephronophthisis (NPHP).
This experimental plan is in line with the HEALTH work programme stating that “Emphasis will be put on translational research (translation of basic discoveries into clinical applications including scientific validation of experimental results).”

EUCILIA exemplifies how basic research among complementary research groups can efficiently and on a broad scale, increase our knowledge of basic biological mechanisms, in this case ciliary function, with potentially significant impacts for human health and quality of life.

Why European?
The EUCILIA consortium brings together a network of European scientists with unique expertise and knowledge on ciliary function that is not to be found at the National level. This consortium represents the best scientists in Europe working on cilia function, applied in three different animal models, accompanied by state-of-the-art research technologies and methods to answer the same biological question.

In addition, National funding agencies tend to avoid allocating funds to study rare genetic diseases, but rather prioritize and direct resources on diseases with a larger epidemiological impact such as cancer or diabetes. However, many important discoveries that have an impact on these types of diseases come from studies focused on basic biological mechanisms that, when defective, manifest in rare but severe genetic syndromes such as the diseases studied by this consortium.

European funding is fundamental to maintain the leading role these scientists have achieved internationally in the field of ciliary diseases.

Why multidisciplinary?
The HEALTH programme states that the EU will “sustain multidisciplinary basic biomedical research where large-scale collaboration at the EU level is essential to exploit the full potential of post-genomic information to underpin applications to human health”.
EUCILIA allows experts on zebrafish and Xenopus models to interact with mouse developmental biologists, human geneticists and cell biology experts giving the project the multidisciplinary approach and depth required by the EU in this work programme.